I moved!

Hey All!

I'm no longer writing here. Instead, I'm at http://www.brainenvy.wordpress.com.

Come check out the party there!

Where am I?

At the beginning of this year, I started dating Jake.

As I would with any man I spend energy on, I want you to be impressed with him and will gloss over any quality that could betray character flaws so as to falsely elevate your esteem of me. To avoid listing all his achievements, suffice it to say he is as attractive, intelligent, and nice as possible.

The problem was that Jake could only hold my attention for 2 hours at a time. With Perfection being as boring as it was, we were destined to never make it to the state of Official Relationship. Yet I let it hiss and putter along for 6 months before asking to be let out. I've been stranded at the same spot ever since while he finished the trip with another gal.

Fuck. And this is the fourth time in a row.

It's not that I'm jealous--I'd never take back those dull dates of flickering conversation. Yeah, of course it was my fault they were as boring as they were--I didn't know how to invest in people, how to make them come alive in coversation, how to probe for information and reconstruct my world view into something more rich than it was before. I was an empty board with a fiercly flashy but uncomplicated installment of liberal arts college-brand communist circuitry.

My mother came back from India to prod me into getting a sales job at a bank so I can start going somewhere again.

Now, I'm not a passenger in a car with a failing engine. Actually, I just bought a Toyota Corolla in August--the same month I started my job. I'm learning how to drive. I'm constantly getting lost and finding my way. My ego is humbled. I'm not complaining about the view, the direction, or the speed. I'm just trying to figure out how to go.

Personalities: Old, lonley eccentric men AKA Cafe ghosts

On a college campus, this man is a familiar stranger. His faux professor attire is your cue that you're done for once you've caught his eye. And unless you can employ either guiltless rudeness or a tactful refusal, you best pack up your book, your laptop, and head somewhere else.


Who is he?
This man is retired, didn't make waves with his career, missed getting the girl, and is probably "writing a book," which together all free him up to desperately seek praise for his intellect (which is sometimes very modest).
And he won't leave you the fuck alone.


What does he do?

He spends all day in coffee shops trapping passersby with conversation on literature or philosophy or politics. He remembers everything--names, dates, historical facts--and he wants to talk--not with you, but at you. So anyone will do, but because you're politely silent, don't share all you know and maybe have a cute face, you've won his heart. He keeps you for hours. Rather than deter him, his lifelong loneliness has made his trap deceptively sticky. You're somewhat intrigued, but you know you're totally wasting time.

So what do you do?

I listen almost every time because I don't know how to get away. But now I have another reason to listen: because he's lonely.

I got trapped by one of these guys yesterday and it took me a while to figure out that he was suffering from classic Hemingway loneliness. I flattered myself and first ran through all the other possibilities he'd want to monopolize my attention for three hours--arrogance about his intellect, wonder at my intellect, horniness (he called me pretty several times), even charity (he tried to help me job search and offered to buy me coffee), but after re-reading Hemingway's A Clean, Well-Lighted Place I finally figured out that it was the kind of loneliness that comes from being close to death. He seeks the vitality and youthful faces of a college campus because everywhere else reminds him of how his life is no longer just beginning.

It's hard for me to have compassion for someone who obnoxiously steals my time and attention. But no one deserves it more. My friends just want people to party with and an audience for their unimpressive sexual exploits. These coffee-shop ghosts need company to stay alive.

Obviously, this isn't how I want to grow old. I want to grow old being a listener not just because I want to stay relevant to the world but also because there's too much to learn to keep my conversation partner silent.

Why are girls so bitchy?

It's a sexist question that's bound to have a sexist answer, but one I've heard asked a lot. I know there's a better article about this somewhere, but here's the answer I gave on answers.com. I aimed to be as brief and plainspoken as possible, but the bot still flagged my answer as inflammatory and biased. Cue tongue in cheek swearing: WTF?!

I don't believe this is chiefly a female problem. Men and women have been known to get irate with each other once in a while. However, I do have a theory for why women *sometimes feel they are entitled to act disrespectfully and impolitely.*

Society has historically oppressed women; from a young age they are typically told that their looks are their greatest assets and they aren't given much confidence about their earning potential. This plays out in the adult world; women make less than men in almost every profession. What often consoles men and women and hides this inequality is the fact that our culture imposes a code of conduct on men requiring them to act gracefully and chivalrously with women. For example, men are supposed to open the doors for women, let the lady go first in line, etc.

I think over the years being tolerant of a woman's cranky moods got rolled into the chivalry act. Hollywood movies and the like depicted chivalrous men falling for impolite girls by finding their tantrums cute, smart and attractive. Take, for an example My Fair Lady or any other romantic comedy. Women started to figure that it's okay, maybe even cute for them to be impolite. But in truth, acting like a bitch and thinking its acceptable to do so further reproduces the inequality between men and women because cranky behavior gets typified as "woman behavior."

So lets just be courteous to everyone regardless of gender, yeah? And stop oppressing us, damn it!

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_mostly_female_like_to_show_anger_and_angry_at_the_male_without_a_polite_and_respect#ixzz1QWlB4RtC

Blog for one or blog for all?

Browsing other blogs on the 20sb network--and being unimpressed by some of them--got me thinking:

Should I blog for myself--as I largely have been--or should I blog for a community that has yet to take shape?

I DO NOT BLOG TO GET READERS--rather, I envision being in constant discussion with other curious, serious people and that's what I feel I haven't yet achieved. The purpose of this blog was to connect with other bloggers, but I'm really struggling with making that happen for a few reasons.

1. Bloggers are self-centered. They live for comments and self-validation but don't like to spend a lot of time giving shape to other bloggers' muck by way of feedback. I started this blog determined to be different, but networking with other bloggers can be tiresome until you've honed in on the few with common interests. I've found a few blogs that I genuinely enjoy reading--on these I comment and express genuine adoration. But they are operated by people who either get too many readers to care about connecting with me or have completely different subject interests.

2. My blog is boring. I don't mean that to provoke self-validating comments--trust me, I don't need to feel any more special than I already do. But I don't have any clear "hook" that would bring people back here unless they know me. I think my lack of readers comes from a lack of focus for the blog as a whole. I started off wanting to talk about politics a ton more, but I've been gravitating to personal issues because that's my main worry in life right now. Which brings me to my third point...

3. Personal issues are difficult for unknown bloggers to muster up a following around unless they're REALLY niche and resonate with readers in the same position--like abuse or weight-loss. I'm in a community of 20 somethings struggling with the same issues, but we all have extremely different ways of approaching our identity issues. It's staggeringly difficult to build a community around an issue as vague as launching into adulthood.


The only way I can make this blog do what I want it to do is if I unapologetically be myself. I have to blog for myself and risk boring everyone who doesn't know me so that I can at least find my voice. That will eventually help me find what I want to discover about the world. So to all bloggers who feel guilty about being self-centered, boring, or are wallowing in self-pity for not having followers: fuck it. You're here for yourself. This is your space to stutter and drone until you sing with a clear voice. Don't worry about the rest--just let it happen.

The Ex Spector

From time to time I find myself drifting into comparing the people I date with my exes. I think about how much better my new guy is for me than the last one was, how I wish new guy would have such-and-such quality that the ex had etc. It gets me stuck in a rut and I miss out on enjoying the person for who they are.

It's hard to escape it, especially if my date and I are with a group of friends who knew my ex and harp on how much they miss him. Yes, that happened, and I'm ashamed that I started it. But this is something I can fix quickly since I never had strong feelings for my ex.

According to this article the remedy is to live in the present instead of the past. The article outlines three "personalities" --Ladies X, Y and Z--who bring up their exes in various capacities; they either talk about his charms, his flaws, or just mindlessly allude to their moments together to fill gaps in the conversation. At different moments I have committed all three errors. Thinking about my ex and constantly comparing--even trying to become--my date's ex are products of not living in the present; they are attempts to live through the lens of my past

Living in the NOW is an integral part of getting through a quarter life crisis. It's a way of life that can give me direction professionally and personally. For an example:

He told me that he loves my passion for what I am studying. The truth is that while I'm passionate about Marxism and equality I'm also going through a phase where I'm finding out that I haven't been working very hard or productively for these causes, and I may not want to. I guess it is important for him to believe that no matter what I do, I'll be passionate and feel good about doing it. I no longer need to find myself, but I need to blaze my trail bit by bit every day. And I'm struggling very much with getting started. I don't think good intentions are enough to keep a guy as great as he is.

My solution is to live in the present moment, figure out the experiences I need right now and start blazing that trail. I'll have to work my ass off to make sure everything will come together. But if I do it right...hey, maybe it will.

My banner is shit: an explanation

My banner has a very juvenile quality. It's the Microsoft Paint equivalent of a 6-year-old's freestyle self portrait by way of crayons, colored pencils and color block stamps. Whatever. I meant for it to look that way. Kind of...

I'm no artist; I do not pour over making things presentable or in *carefully* conveying visual messages. I reserve that energy for writing, and even there I take a lot less care than I should.

So why did I bother to make my own banner?

1. I wanted to try it. It's a quick check to see if I had any knack for creating something on a very basic art program. I was inspired by the legendary comic Ali at hyperboleandahalf who creates magic with the paint program on her Mac. Clearly, I suck. It was a humbling experience that I may repeat just for fun. I actually used to draw during high school--my art teacher even encouraged me to join the magnet arts program. But I was never very motivated and my artistic energy died by the end of my junior year; I was tired of being upstaged by my more talented friends. Now, I'm facing my fear of failure, opening myself up for judgment, and will probably grow faster than was until now.

2. This blog needs a personal touch--even a half-assed childish one. Reading some of my entries, I tend to sound like an academic sometimes, and that's not a good thing. I occasionally sound stuffier than real academics like Lauren (though there's no reason she would ever sound stuffy since she has a background in creative writing). I could blame college; I haven't focused on developing my own voice since I wrote my first post for this blog in 2009. It has a more conversational tone than many of the posts that came after because I hadn't written many academic papers back then. Blogs are supposed to be conversational.

So yeah, my banner sucks. If you'd like to make me a new one, I'd take you up on it. Since no one is going to offer, I'll probably take a stab at creating my own again, but maybe not through Paint.